


A Warm Goodbye

by jenni3penny



Category: Lie to Me (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-19
Updated: 2016-10-19
Packaged: 2018-08-23 08:15:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8320591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jenni3penny/pseuds/jenni3penny
Summary: Just a short little tag to S2, E20: 'Exposed'.





	

_Burn the bridge_ , he thinks. Lean the gasoline down and pour, s'all it would take. Least it's a warm goodbye, then, yeah? A bridge aflame with words and fire and he can smell the crisp crackling ash already twisting in updrafts around them. There's heat on his shoulders, the back of his head, all from her watching. All of his good intentions glitter like the last pieces of fire-starter, paper stars going ashen in the dark and gone.

If he says it, _really_ says it, he's done for and done in. No crossing back over that bridge, eh?

He knows it for a fact, he does. Burns knows it – and that's why they're here, in the long run.

_Burn the fucking bridge_ , he thinks to himself. _Carpet bomb it, if necessary._

So, might as well match-strike, might as well light up the whole damn world.

There's no way he can lie - and he doesn't want to anymore anyhow.

_Goodbye, darling. I've loved you longer, stronger, more and less._

Match pack, gasoline, the words will be the accelerant.

**_“In the worst possible way.”_ **

 

* * *

 

 

He can feel it from behind him, that inferno, that blaze of her silent acknowledgment.

He knows it's lit in her glance, he knows the sharp turn of her head and the butane blue of her eyes like he's memorized them since the moment they'd met.

He knows that she's supposedly surprised but, hell, he knows that's none the case.

She's not surprised by the revelation. She'll be utterly blind-sided by his (in)voluntary admittance.

He wonders, in that momentary hanging silence, how strong a fire it would take to utterly decimate the bridge that carries between them.

He wonders if this fire is strong enough, or if it'll just smolder for another lifetime long.

 

* * *

 

 

_**“I liked the one he had.”** _

He could simply choke, asphyxiate on the tone of voice she's used. Strangled, she sounds strangled and like she's swallowing down lungs full of something acrid as she realizes that she's become an island.

The bridge before her: _Abandoned_.

The bridge behind: _Destroyed_.

So he's got only two choices, right? Only two options open to him in this particular situation, this moment that's drying up his throat, closing his airway.

He can leave her stranded, no way across this hurt that's filling her voice and eyes...

(He thinks maybe he should. Because this time he took the step, didn't he? This time he damn well tried, right? He let the words out and true. He gave her what she's wanted and he's always with-held. Maybe he oughta just leave her lingering with no exit route. Maybe it's her turn to build her way back to him.)

Or... he can cross this space she's created around herself, this mote of loss and abandonment.

(He thinks that burning bridges is an awfully silly habit in the long run. Better to never have crossed them to begin with. Safer and less with the clinging sulfur smell.)

He offers his hand, down-turned and with a gamely nod toward the nearest exit - because he loves her despite Burns, despite himself, despite what's been left crumbling of their relationship.

He offers his hand, like a friend and not a lover, and she studies it with expectant confusion - because he loves her, despite everything.

He offers his hand - because reparation and restoration are bridges best made by manual tools.


End file.
